Wednesday, 19 October 2011

I`ve read many articles about useful apps for Apple products so far and there are several apps I use in my iPhone that are rarely featured. So I decided to publish my own list.I have focused mainly on free apps although there are a few paid ones that are worth it. I have left out dictionaries since there are many options and probably deserve a post of their own.All the apps reviewed here are available for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.

This app is an interactive vocabulary notebook for language learners. You can browse preloaded flashcards of the most important words in the English
language. Each flashcard contains pictures, sounds, example sentences,
translations and notes to help you remember.

This version does not contain any translations but you can enter your
own translations by editing the words. Regional language versions are
available for: Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, French and Arabic.
• Free
• Language: English

Conversation English is an app for anyone learning English. There are 20
complete Conversation English Lessons that include 200 common English
Idioms and Expressions and help you develop your Listening and Speaking
Skills.
• $4.99
• Language: English

This app presents phrasal verbs in different categories. You need to
solve the category puzzle first and as you do, the phrasal verbs are
added to the dictionary section, where you can read the definition. Although it looks a bit difficult, a newer version is being developed to provide more help with solving the puzzles.
• £0.99
• Language: English

Hold your iPhone in front of your mouth and talk, shout, laugh, scream or sing to get the mouth of your choice to animate in time with the sounds you make. There`s a lite version with one free mouth.• $0.99• Language: English

This app is an easy way to turn your images into custom slideshow movies. The lite version has some restrictions in the number of pictures allowed and maximum recording time of 10 minutes.• Free/ $2.99• Language: English

Sunday, 16 October 2011

This my contribution to the topic of FOOD in education. I have put together some interesting interactive resources related to food and nutrition. Click on the images to go to the websites.

Nutrition

This is the USDA website with a few interactive resources to explore nutrition issues.

This is a collection of nutrition related games for children.

A collection of interactive tools related to nutrition by the USDA

Interactive Nutrition Label and Quiz by Health Canada

Sustainability

This is an interesting article about the sustainable table with an option to find out what's fresh and ripe where you live in the US. Great if you live in the US but useful too for other countries to discuss this issue.

A similar tool is this interactive US map that shows seasonal ingredients

These are just a few tools to get you started in the discussion of food related issues. Hope you have found something useful!

Thursday, 29 September 2011

SpeedUpTV is a new iOS-based application, compatible with the iPhone. This application provides rich features that have made it a popular choice among various iPhone users. Some iPhone users, like foreign language students, find this application simply amazing. SpeedUpTV is an effective app for improving your listening comprehrension skills. For example, if you have trouble understanding some dialogue in your favorite drama or an important part during a movie you can always replay or slow it down and loop it so you can understand what was said more clearly.

Let me explain in more detail. You can decrease the speed to 0.5X meaning you can slow down the speech of a video. Moreover, you can choose playback speed of 0.5x, 1x, 1.5x, 2x or 2.5x without sacrificing on quality of the video. This can be helpful when watching educational videos or maybe a lecture in English or any other foreign language.

This app helps students clarify their errors and make the necessary changes to improve fluency. I found this app to be of great use for people trying to learn a new language. I was able to slowdown the speed of video to better understand what the speaker was saying. SpeedUpTV is a great tool for improving listening skills. By listening to the video slowly and then progressively faster, I was able to better understand each dialogue and the nuances of pronunciation.

For those of you having trouble understanding the dialogue in your favorite foreign dramas because of the speed of their speech this app might help you improve your listening comprehension skills while also enjoying learning a foreign language.

AppsAsia is a South Korean-based company passionately dedicated to
providing marketing, promotion and advertising services for Korean
iPhone application developers.
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If you are interested in this app, I have 4 redeem codes to give away, courtesy of AppsAsia. Just send me an email at saumell.vicky@gmail.com and the first four will get them.

Thursday, 15 September 2011

Since the very beginning of the internet, and even more so these days with the endless number of useful websites and applications that we come across every day as educators, the need to organize our findings has become an essential skill. Fortunately, there are many tools that can help us to achieve this much needed organization of resources, referred to as social bookmarking.

This video about social bookmarking is a great introduction to the topic

The video also introduces the concept of tagging, which is expanded in this one.

A main consideration about tagging is consistency. Tags have to work for you, but good tags also work for the rest. Decide whether you will use a singular or plural noun (animal or animals?), and infinitive or a gerund (tag or tagging?), etc to make it easier to find things.

If you want to read further about social bookmarking and tagging, here are 2 interesting articles